ZFS replacement of different sized drives

[CJRoss]

I know that if you create a VDEV with different sized drives that you will end up with only the smallest drives worth of space usable on each drive. I also know that if you replace the smallest drive that the VDEV will expand to use the new smallest drive worth of space. I know that you can't replace a drive with a smaller drive in a homogeneous setup.

What I don't know is if you can replace a drive that is bigger than the smallest drive in the VDEV. For example, if I have a 1TB, a 2TB, and a 3TB drive in a raidz1 setup, I will get 2TB of usable space. If I need to replace the 2TB or 3TB drive, can I use a 1TB drive? Can I replace the 3TB with a 2TB? Or does the replacement have to be the same size or bigger no matter the actual utilization?

Thanks.

 

[sretalla]

Theory says if it's big enough to contain your SWAP partition and still be big enough to match the smallest drive, it should work.

You can always try it if you have a port free... if it fails, no loss.

 

[CJRoss]

I don't have any ports free to try it. That's why I was wondering if anyone on here knew.